


Could Be Worse

by ChiropteraJones



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Animorphs Remix Challenge, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 16:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1191801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiropteraJones/pseuds/ChiropteraJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a remix of Derin's fic This Is It (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1118133), done for the Animorphs Remix Challenge. Pretty sure the original is better, but here we go anyway. I've never remixed anything before, so I probably did it wrong, but this is a continuation of sorts. Go read This Is It if you haven't, both because this won't make total sense otherwise and because it is awesome. </p>
<p>Original summary: Illim has trouble coming to grips with the aftermath of the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could Be Worse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Derin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This Is It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118133) by [Derin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin). 



 

Illim had come to dislike interviews. This one was for a magazine, and so far it had not gone well.

_Should have brought Lance,_ he thought. He could tell that the journalist, a twenty-something man with trendy hair and an old-fashioned pencil and notepad, wasn’t inclined to be sympathetic to them in the first place, but the presence of a real human might have helped. The age thing might have helped too.

“I’m just saying, don’t you think that a peace movement is rather, shall we say… redundant, these days?” The interviewer looked up from his notepad and raised his eyebrows.

Illim took a deep breath. “Why, no, quite the contrary,” he said, through his fixed smile. “I think it’s just as relevant and important as ever. Our role has changed, but not our end goal. Peaceful coexistence between yeerks, humans, and other peoples.” It’s not the first time he’s said that phrase this afternoon. Maybe if he says it enough times it will sink in. He doubts it.

“Mister – ah –“

“Just Illim,” Illim said. They were sitting at a small table under an awning with cups of coffee; neutral territory, Illim supposed. He fiddled with the collar of his dress shirt and sighed.

“Right. Illim.” The journalist smiled patronisingly. “The Yeerk War ended nine years ago, Illim. We already have peace.”

_Maybe you do. We don’t._

“The war is over, yes,” Illim agreed. His phone vibrated in his pocket; he ignored it. Have to deal with whatever that was later. “But I wouldn’t say we have peace. The Andalite fleet still blockades the Yeerk Homeworld, and last I heard it was anything but peaceful there. Here on Earth, there is still widespread -”

“Yes, we spoke about the tensions in your community already,” the interviewer said. “Are you planning to do anything about riots on the Yeerk Homeworld? That’s not what you’ve spoken of before.”

“Considering that I’m here on Earth and it’s quite difficult for me to leave, no, there is nothing I can do about the situation on the Homeworld,” Illim snapped.

His phone rang again, silently. He took it out of his pocket and shoved it in his backpack, taking the moment to remind himself to cool it. “The Homeworld is out of our reach at the moment.”

“If it wasn’t, though,” the journalist said. “What would you want to do?”

“Well, if we’re talking ideally, I would like to open up the lines of communication,” Illim said. “We hear so little from the Homeworld these days. And it would be nice to, say, send some of the nothlits back. Perhaps, maybe, in time, we could have a few of the non-nothlit yeerks visit over here. Supervised, of course. And nobody but their fellow yeerks would be asked to have them.”

The interviewer stared at him. “That would be...” His mouth twisted as though he’d bitten into something unpleasant. “That seems unlikely to me.”

“Well, like I said,” Illim said, keeping his voice light. “It’s what I would like. I understand there are reasons it can’t happen yet.”

“Right,” the journalist said. He was frowning. “So, Illim…” He consulted his notepad. “…seven-four-nine. Getting right to the heart of the matter, would you mind summing up for me: What, specifically, does the so-called Peace Movement want?”

“Our ultimate goal is peaceful coexistence between yeerks and humans,” Illim said. “What I mean is –”

“Yes, you already said that,” he interrupted. “But what, exactly, would that look like? It’s obvious you have a goal beyond simply promoting tolerance and understanding of yeerks and your culture here on Earth.” There it was, that slight pause before the word ‘culture’, like an invisible sneer. Maybe Illim was imagining it.

Illim hesitated. _Well, here goes_ , he thought. “When I say that, I don’t just mean yeerks on earth in human morph,” he said. “Ultimately, in the long term, we would hope to see a society in which yeerks and humans can live _as_ yeerks and humans, together, as equals. Whether that’s in the form of partnerships, like the one I’ve spoken of having with Lance Tidwell, or some other system, obviously it would take work to get to the - ”

The journalist tapped his pen on the table thoughtfully. “I see,” he said, with cold eyes.

The interview was pretty much a lost cause from there.

When the interviewer had gone, Illim sighed and stretched out his lengthening legs under the table, shoulders slumped. Almost every human who wasn’t already solidly Peace Movement had reacted negatively, when he tentatively raised the idea of voluntary yeerk cohabitation. It disgusted people.

Baby steps, though. They’d make headway.

Idly, Illim pulled out his mobile phone, glanced at the screen… and swore. Eight missed calls from Lance.

***

“I just don’t understand how this happened,” Illim fumed. He gripped the steering wheel of the car in the ten-to-two position. He had been very, very close to shouting abuse at the hospital desk staff who had looked dubious about him taking Lance home.

Lance looked better, but very tired. He wasn’t actually very badly hurt. A cotton ball taped to the crook of his elbow and a small sticking plaster over his temple was the only real signs of the fall and hospital visit.

“I’m getting older, Illim.” Lance winced and put one hand on the dashboard, as if trying to put the brakes on himself. “You need to start braking earlier than that.”

“Oh, shut up, you are not,” Illim snapped. “You’re only – uh – wait, hang on…”

“I’m coming up on sixty, you know.”

“So? That’s nothing. Medical technology the way it is now, you’ll live another thirty years at least. At least,” Illim repeated, glaring at Lance.

“Eyes on the road,” he said automatically. “Illim – jesus, Illim, _look_ before you enter a roundabout - who said anything about dying? I’m getting older, I’m not at death’s door. I’ll just have to make some changes, is all, and we’ll work around it.”

Illim drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Coming up on sixty. Illim’s human morph was somewhere around seventeen.

Lance Tidwell was forty-odd years older than Illim, physically speaking. So, barring injury or illness or other unforeseen circumstances, he could be expected to die forty or so years before Illim.

He’d always known that, in a way, but he’d never given all that much thought to it till now. Lance had been there for so long, the idea of him one day _not_ being there was…

 These last few years, as they tried to set up the new Peace Movement, Lance had been taking more of a backseat role. He was endlessly supportive, but - Illim was the one giving the interviews, attending the meetings. Lance said that it was Illim and the other ex-yeerks’ place, not his, which seemed reasonable enough.

Everyone had started referring to it as the New Peace Movement, although the membership didn’t exactly match up. Some of the old guard were happy enough with what they had. Some didn’t think the Movement was going to do any good. Some were dead.

It seemed odd to Illim – during the invasion, when they’d been working in a system where yeerks had all the power, a yeerk had lead the Peace Movement. And now, when humans were in power… it was still a yeerk. He wondered why that was. 

They could be open about what they were doing now, which should have made things quicker, but really didn’t.

“Probably neither of us is going to live to see the end of this, you know,” Illim said.

“We knew that even when we took it up the first time,” Lance said. “Back during the invasion. How’d the interview go?”

Illim pulled the car around a corner a bit more violently than was strictly necessary, hand over hand on the wheel.  “Aren’t I grateful for my amnesty? Don’t I think a peace movement is redundant?”

Lance sighed. “Tell me about it when we get home. If we get home, the way you’re driving.”

***

Illim yawned as he crossed the kitchen. Lance was reading yesterday’s paper at the kitchen table. He’d moved aside a small jug of flowers and a stack of papers to make room.

“Kettle’s on,” he said absently.

There was a handful of small white pill bottles in the middle of the table, by the flowers. Illim picked up one of them and turned it in his hand, then pushed it across the checkered tablecloth at Lance. “Don’t forget these,” he reminded him. “They’re the new ones. Have you done your blood sugar yet?”

Lance sighed, and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “No, not yet. I hadn’t forgotten. Stop fussing.”

“Good.” Illim brushed past and headed out to get today’s paper.

Rolled up and pushed into their mailbox was a magazine – the one the interview had been for. Illim had almost forgotten that would be coming out today. He flicked through it and found the article. There was a picture, some artist’s impression of a yeerk. The anatomy was awful. Also a photo of him, hair neatly combed, adolescently gangly, but staring down the camera with bright blue eyes.

He took the magazine inside. “Any interesting hatemail?” Lance asked.

“Nah,” Illim said. He tossed the magazine across the table at Lance. “Read this and tell me to what extent he’s made me out to be, A: a raving lunatic, or B: intent on waging a second invasion of Earth.”

Lance picked it up and read the title. “Well, could be worse,” he said.

“Yeah,” Illim said thoughtfully. “Could be worse, but it’s going to be better.”

 


End file.
